Job offers in the City of London dipped 23 per cent in February ahead of the government triggering Article 50 to leave the EU, new figures suggest.

The Morgan McKinley's London Employment Monitor found the number of advertised City jobs to fell to 6,945 in February, down from 9,015 in January, and year-on-year job openings were down 17 per cent on the 8,325 reported in February 2016.

The report suggests the fall means the City job market is still under stress.

“On one side we've got the 'business as usual' team, and on the other we have the institutions that are tired of the Government's hemming and hawing and have already begun to move jobs to other EU countries.

“It's the latter group that's contributed to the quarter drop in jobs available.”

The government is expected to officially trigger Article 50 later this month, which will kick-start Brexit negotiations.

The Brexit Minister David Davis admitted to MP's yesterday the government has down no economic assessment of the impact of crashing out of the EU without a new trade deal, despite the Prime Minister stating she is prepared to walk away from negotiations if not satisfied with the terms on offer.

Mr Davis also admitted the City could lose passporting rights, which allow financial services firms to trade across the EU without having to secure individual permissions from each member state.

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Mr Enver said the London Employment Monitor data suggests Brexit has had a “fundamental depressing effect” on jobs.

He said: “London is still home to the best financial services talent in the world, but if the jobs go, so will people.

“And when they leave, it will devastate the financial services infrastructure, costing British citizens jobs, too,” Mr Enver said.

A number of companies have already publicly announced plans to move operations out of the UK to safeguard the parts of their business reliant on access to the single market. Rival financial hubs such as Paris, Dublin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg are looking to benefit from any exodus.

HSBC is on course to move 1,000 jobs from its London office to France where it already has a full service universal bank after buying up Credit Commercial de France in 2002, while Barclays is considering bulking up its Dublin offices, which hosts about 100 staff.

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Others like JP Morgan have yet to settle on a location, though its chief executive Jamie Dimon has said that around 4,000 of its 16,000 UK staff could be shifted out of Britain, depending on the outcome of Brexit negotiations.

UBS has also said it could move up to 1,500 of its London staff to the continent.